English Explanatory Dictionary

layer

English dictionary entry

Meanings

noun
  1. A single thickness of some material covering a surface.
  2. An item of clothing worn under or over another.
  3. A (usually) horizontal deposit; a stratum.
  4. One of the items in a hierarchy.
  5. One in a stack of (initially transparent) drawing surfaces that comprise an image; used to keep elements of an image separate so that they can be modified independently from one another.
  6. One of the seven network switch pieces in the Open Systems Interconnection model: application, presentation, session, transport, network, data link, and physical.
  7. An alternative keymap accessed through a modifier key or toggle.
verb
  1. To cut or divide into layers.
  2. To arrange in layers.
noun
  1. A person who lays anything, such as tiles or a wager.
  2. A mature female bird, insect, etc. that is able to lay eggs.
  3. A hen kept to lay eggs; a breed of chicken bred to maximize laying output.
  4. A shoot of a plant, laid underground for growth.
name
  1. A surname.

Pronunciation

/lɛə/ /ˈleɪ.ə/ /ˈleɪ.əɹ/ /leɹ/ en-us-layer.ogg /ˈleɪ.ɚ/

Word forms

layer layers layering layered

Etymology

Appears at first glance to be from Middle English leyer, leyare (“a layer of stones or bricks”), equivalent to lay + -er. In which case, ultimately identical to etymology 2 below. For the pronunciation compare prayer. However, this word layer (referring to a thickness of a material covering a surface) has also been argued to be from a respelling of an obsolete sense of the word lair that was once used by farmers, which had to do with soil. The connecting sense between the usual meaning of lair and the specialised farming meaning was: an area where cows typically rest, the ground being fertilised by their waste. Related to lie, ledger.

Synonyms

lay stratum

Derived words

abscission layer absciss layer adlayer alpha layer basal layer baselayer bilayer biolayer boundary layer creamy layer Crookes layer deep scattering layer delayer D layer Dua's layer epilayer epitaxial layer F layer fog layer germ layer graphene layer gyrolayer Heaviside layer hemilayer heterolayer hidden layer interlayer intralayer Kennelly-Heaviside layer Knudsen layer layer 2 tunnelling protocol layer 8 layerable layerage layer-cake layer cake layer-cake federalism layer cake federalism layerize layer two tunnelling protocol layer up layerwise Lazarus layer Malpighian layer marzipan layer mesolayer metalayer microlayer monolayer multilayer nanolayer orchestration layer OSI layer OSI layer 8 overlayer ozone layer pentalayer pipe-layer plexiform layer pre-salt layer

Translations

Albanian: shtresë Arabic: طَبَقَة Armenian: շերտ Azerbaijani: təbəqə Azerbaijani: qat Azerbaijani: lay Bashkir: ҡат Bashkir: ҡатлам Belarusian: слой Belarusian: пласт Bengali: পরত Bulgarian: слой Bulgarian: пласт Burmese: အထပ် Catalan: capa Chinese Cantonese: 層 /层 Chinese: цын Chinese Mandarin: 層 /层 West Circassian: пцум Czech: vrstva Danish: lag Dutch: laag Esperanto: tavolo Estonian: kiht Finnish: kerros French: couche Galician: capa Georgian: ფენა Georgian: შრე German: Lage German: Schicht Greek: στρώση Greek: στρώμα Greek: στιβάδα Greek: διάστρωση Hebrew: רוֹבֶד Hebrew: שִׁכְבָה Hindi: परत Hindi: तह Hindi: तबक़ा Hindi: तबका Hungarian: réteg Icelandic: lag Ido: strato Ingrian: kerros Irish: sraith Italian: strato Japanese: 層 Japanese: 膜 Kazakh: қабат Kazakh: қат Kazakh: қаттам Khmer: ជាន់ Korean: 층 Kyrgyz: катмар Kyrgyz: кабат Kyrgyz: кат Lao: ຊັ້ນ Latvian: slānis Finnish: munija
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